


Just take my hand

by klose



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Family, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klose/pseuds/klose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman's thumb brushes over his cheekbone, and Dick feels the streak of something sticky and wet trailing after it. Blood. "Reckless." That gravelly tone hot over his ear, now. And somehow they're pressed even closer together, suddenly, and Dick lets himself cling. In the blurry darkness the only thing he knows is the solid wall of heat that's Batman and it's all he wants to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just take my hand

**Author's Note:**

> With great thanks to Meeya for helping me make this better. <3

* * *

Even after running through it in his mind over and over, Dick can't say how it happened. But it starts when Batman and Nightwing stagger away from the warehouse minutes before it explodes in a shower of fire and debris.   
  
After his ears stop ringing, Dick finds that they are leaned up against the wall of another warehouse further down the dock. Leaned against each other. Batman's arm is around Nightwing's waist, both of them bleeding from various minor injuries, and, god, Batman is so  _warm_ , the only warm thing against the bone-numbing chill of Gotham in winter.   
  
"You're injured."   
  
Dick's laugh rings cracked and hollow in the air, and it makes his chest ache. "Just a flesh wound."  
  
Batman doesn't share the joke. He shifts them both, guiding Nightwing on to the wall and keeping him propped up with a knee between Dick's legs.   
  
Dick glances up through heavy eyes, trying to focus on Batman, trying to check if his partner is injured. With one of Dick's lenses broken, and blood dripping from his head, it's hard to see, and he has to reach a hand out to touch Batman. To run up the sides of the armour, over his heart, right up to the edges of the cowl, and he still can't  _see_  what's happening. All he can feel is the skin of Bruce's cheek beneath his finger tips. The softness of his lips. The hard heat of his body pushing Dick against the wall.  
  
Dick's breath hitches.  
  
"You... you're..."  
  
"Fine." Batman sounds gruff. When he touches the side of Dick's face, the side that's mangled, his gloves are gentle. Tentative. "You took the brunt of the mace."   
  
And Dick wants to both wince and laugh at that memory, because what is a thug doing with a weapon like that, anyway? It's not like they're in medieval Europe. But Batman leans in closer, his breath a hot whisper over Dick's neck. "You shouldn't have done that."  
  
"And let you--" Dick gasps, as Batman's fingers sort through the tangled, clotted mess of blood that's his hair. He isn't rough, but there's a cut on his scalp and it's deep. "--Get it right in the back--" Talking hurts, even these raspy words he's pushing out of his mouth. "-- back of your weak knee? As if."  
  
Dick can feel those white lenses scrutinising him. He'd give anything to see Bruce's eyes behind them. All he can do is look right back, though he can barely make out a vague silhouette of the cowl in the darkness.   
  
"Foolish." Batman's thumb brushes over his cheekbone, and Dick feels the streak of something sticky and wet trailing after it. Blood. "Reckless." That gravelly tone hot over his ear, now. And somehow they're pressed even closer together, suddenly, and Dick lets himself cling. In the blurry darkness the only thing he knows is the solid wall of heat that's Batman and it's all he wants to know.  
  
"Brave."   
  
Then Bruce kisses him. Kisses the broken skin under his eye, kisses his cheek, his jaw, and Dick lifts his face up, accepting all of it --   
  
His lips.   
  
Dick can't stop a wordless noise from escaping his mouth, pain and longing wrapped up in that one little sound; and he tightens his hands over Batman's, willing him not to let go, never to let go.  
  
And the kiss continues, a strange dance of tenderness and hunger, lips and tongues exploring and tasting and  _sucking_. Their bodies slide together, hips rolling, and it's only when Bruce's cup rocks against Dick's crotch -- God, Dick's so painfully  _hard_  already but this is  _Bruce_ , and they've never been this close, not like this, not even when it was all Dick ever wanted -- that he pulls away, gasping for breath and for Batman and for  _more_.  
  
"Nightwing." It's a husky growl that makes Dick buck, right into Bruce's hips. "You--"  
  
"-- Please," Dick draws in a ragged breath, hardly daring to believe what's happening but throwing himself into it feet first. "I need--"  
  
"Stitches." A cold chill envelopes Dick as Batman pulls away. "You're wounded."   
  
Nightwing's gauntlets go limp, letting the Kevlar-woven cape slide off his fingers. He swallows. "Y-Yeah."  
  
Dick almost lets him go. But without really thinking about it, he leans -- leaps -- forward, and captures Bruce's mouth in an unrelenting kiss.  
  
  
*  
  
  
They go back to Nightwing's base. It's really a concealed room in Dick's loft. Batman would have made for the Batcave, but Dick is insistent.   
  
He has to assert his independence, because Bruce sure as hell won't do it for him.  
  
That's what he tells himself, anyway.   
  
It should feel significant when the masks come off, but it just hurts when Bruce cleans the wound around his eye. Dick doesn't have anything fancy like an examining table, just a low stool to sit on so he doesn't fall over. Bruce doesn't bother drawing up the high-backed computer chair that Dick left for him; instead, he stands while taking care of Dick's wounds.   
  
They've been this close before. Neither of them are strangers to injuries or tending to them. But now every touch of Bruce's hands makes Dick's loins ache with long-suppressed  _want_. He has to bite down on every sigh and shiver that threatens to make any of this awkward because if there is one thing he can't take, it would be scaring Bruce away.   
  
When the last stitch is sewn, and Bruce sets the medical equipment aside, Dick prepares himself for the man to step back. Away from Dick.   
  
"All done?" he says, trying to keep the disappointment out of his words. This isn't anything new. Why should that night be any different.  
  
"Done," Bruce says, his voice low and dark, eyes fixed on his hands as he cleans them.  
  
Dick stares at his own hands. The little bruises on his palm, from all the punches and slaps he didn't quite manage to dodge that night, are already turning blue. But he's used to these small hurts.   
  
"You should--" he says, and cuts himself short. When he looks up, Bruce's gaze is on him, and --  
  
And Dick's breath catches in his throat. Bruce is watching him intently, those blue eyes darkened and fixed on him alone. He has such a bad case of cowl hair. Dick wants to run his hair through every lock, wants to know if they're each as silky smooth as they seem. He bets they are.  
  
Bruce steps closer. "I--?"  
  
Dick bites his lip, unable to break away from those hooded, unwavering eyes. His hand fiddles with the opening of his collar, where the zipper is hidden. Everything feels so hot, all of a sudden, here in this enclosed, windowless room.  
  
And Bruce steps in closer, right between his thighs. His bare fingertips cover Dick's, warm and calloused and more than enough to send a shudder rippling through Dick's body.  
  
Bruce draws the zipper down, inch by inch.  
  
He gets down on his knees.  
  
He traces the muscles cording Dick's stomach, slow and reverent in his touch and, god, tender,  _so_  tender.  
  
"Oh," Dick gasps, back arching and cock twitching.   
  
When Bruce leans forward to kiss a trail over his navel, Dick can't keep from moaning softly. It all feels so unbelievably good, because it's Bruce, this is Bruce. Bruce curling his fingers over Dick's hipbones, Bruce ghosting his mouth so softly over Dick's skin, just inches above his groin, Bruce...  
  
"Please," Dick murmurs, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. He kicks the stool back to fall down to his own knees in front of Bruce. To dismantle the older man's suit, to pull the Bat away -- to strip him of his armour till there's nothing left but sweat and skin and  _them_.   
  
Bruce lets him.  
  
  
*  
  
  
They're both naked, in several ways, when Dick leads Bruce to his bedroom. The loft is dark around them, all shadows and flickers of dim street lights outside, and it's almost like being back at the warehouse with his broken eye lens. All Dick has is the thick muscles of Bruce's torso under his hands, the man's slick skin beneath his mouth. The incredible grind of their hips together, the little noises Bruce allows himself to make.  
  
It's more than enough.  
  
  
*  
  
  
The room is warm and bright when Dick wakes up. Sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, muted only by the flimsy day curtains.   
  
It takes a few blinks for the haze of first wakefulness to fade away. It takes another few to realise Bruce stayed. Their bodies are still pressed together beneath the sheets, and Dick glances up to find Bruce propped on his side, observing him. He's just as achingly handsome by the light of day, bed hair and all, and he's in Dick's bed. God.  
  
"Hey." Dick can't follow that up with anything but a smile.   
  
Bruce reaches out to brush away a stray lock of Dick's hair. "Hi." He returns the smile, and it's enough to make Dick's heart skip a beat or five. But only until Dick properly meets his eyes.  
  
That -- sadness, there, it's nothing new. Not to Dick, who's known Bruce longer than most. Never quite so intimately as this past night , but... they've always been friends. Best friends.  
  
Dick knows exactly what that look means.  
  
"Don't." His voice cracks.   
  
"Dick--" And at least Bruce doesn't try to skirt the issue, because Dick would have had to deck him for that.   
  
He reaches out to cup Bruce's cheek, rubbing his thumb over the bristle that's sprouted overnight. "Don't regret this. You don't have to be afraid. Not with me."  
  
Not after the night they'd shared. Bodies intertwined and connected so  _deep_. Bruce thrusting against Dick slow and gentle, holding him close like he was something delicate. Their hands clasped, fingers intertwined. Gazes locked, never wavering, even when they both came so near that it may as well have been together, gasping out each other's names.   
  
Bruce closes his eyes, exhaling a shaky breath. "This can't--"  
  
Dick doesn't let him finish talking. Refuses to let him even get close. Because seeing the contrition in his expression, in the furrow of his brows and the thin line of his mouth, is so much worse than if Bruce had just left before Dick woke up.   
  
"You deserve to be happy." His words fall out like jagged shards of glass and Dick has to suck in a desperate breath. "Let me be that person, Bruce. Please..."  
  
Maybe it's too much for him to expect more. To hope for something he knows, ultimately, that Bruce can never give him. Knowing that doesn't stop something inside him from breaking when Bruce rolls away, onto his back, Batman-hard stare fixed on the ceiling.   
  
  
*  
  
It's a few days after, late in the evening following his patrol, when Dick tries to call Bruce on his cellphone. Nightwing and Batman haven't seen or spoken to each other since that night. Dick thought to give the man space. Physical space, thinking space. And what Bruce is thinking, exactly... for once, he can't say.  
  
When the phone continues to ring without an answer, Dick figures he can make an educated guess.  
  
But he just curls up in bed, hugging a stray pillow, and tosses his phone aside. The streets of Old Gotham outside his loft, dimly illuminated by half-broken lamps, echo with the noise of drunk students and yowling strays. Hours pass before sleep finally forces his eyes shut, coming and going in fits and starts even when it does.  
  
  
*  
  
  
Red Robin and Robin are both clever, but they shouldn't be able to get the drop on Nightwing. He isn't even that distracted, he's had too many years of experience to let his personal life affect his activity out on the streets, yet --  
  
Yet even a small chink in his armour is more than enough for the combined efforts of Red Robin, Robin, and Oracle too, apparently, to exploit and get under.  
  
"Moping does not become you, Nightwing," Robin announces, dropping down onto the rooftop proper.   
  
"I hate to agree with the Dem -- uh, Robin," Red Robin amends, "-- But he's right. You're off your game."  
  
Dick just gives them a dirty look, as he disentangles himself from the ropes binding him. "What do you want?"  
  
" _To kick your very pert behind_ ," Oracle says, over the comms. " _Metaphorically, Robin_ ," she adds.  
  
"Tt."  
  
A loud sigh escapes past Dick's lips, but it's not like he made much of an effort to keep it back anyway. "I'm kind of busy here, guys."  
  
Red Robin crosses his arms. "Busy being overly aggressive with baddies and avoiding anyone who gives a damn about you?"   
  
"Not that we're complaining about the latter."  
  
"Shut up, Robin."  
  
"You shut your oversized trap, you --"  
  
" _Boys_." Oracle's voice is sharp enough to cut through the squabbling, but not sharp enough to keep Nightwing from taking out his grapple and preparing to jump away. " _Dick, look -- not that either of you have said anything, but it's clear something happened with you and Bruce._ "  
  
When Dick doesn't answer, Robin and Red Robin nod triumphantly.   
  
" _And whatever it was, clearly he was his usual emotionally repressed self and pushed you away._ "  
  
To put it lightly. But other than that one lapse, that one night, Bruce has always striven to keep their relationship within the realms of what society deemed appropriate. Minimal physical contact. No phone calls after dinner. All other conversations short and never veering past polite, meaningless small talk or Bat-matters. It's entirely unsurprising that he'd second-guessed himself, in this one exceptional instance, but that doesn't stop it from  _hurting_ , right in the centre of Dick's chest.  
  
"And for some reason you let him."  
  
Red Robin's words slice through him as neatly as a sharpened Batarang.   
  
"You don't know--"  
  
"No, we don't," Robin interrupts. "Frankly, we don't want to either. But this is completely pathetic, Nightwing."  
  
"What he's trying to say," Red Robin adds, putting up his palms in a peaceable gesture. "Is that this isn't you. You chase people down, you never back down, you're--"  
  
"--  _Just as much of a stubborn ass as the Bat_ ," Oracle finishes. " _So are you going to go get your man, or does Robin actually need to kick you?_ "  
  
The two boys stare at Dick expectantly, hands on their hips and probably not even realising how they completely mirror each other in that moment. Seeing Tim and Damian in agreement, for once is... not unwelcome, even if Dick isn't comfortable with their interference in this part of his life.   
  
After a long pause, Dick shakes his head. "I can't believe I'm taking romantic advice from my ex-girlfriend and my little brothers, but I seem to be outnumbered here." He allows himself to crack a wry smile. "I guess I've now got an errant Bat to track down, huh?"  
  
" _Get thee gone, Man Wonder._ "  
  
"Can I kick him anyway?"  
  
"Shut up, Robin."  
  
  
*  
  
  
Making himself scarce is a skill Bruce has down pat. He's Batman, after all. But Dick was Robin longer than anyone else, has been Nightwing for a greater length of time, and even played Batman for a while. The only other people better equipped to find Bruce, when he's run away from the hurts of life, are Alfred and Superman -- and they're both super-powered. (Alfred more than Clark, Dick can't help but think sometimes.)  
  
All things considered, though, he doesn't have to go far to find Bruce. Just to the expanse of vast, frost-covered landscape that shields Stately Wayne Manor from the rest of the world. It's still not the first place Dick would have thought to investigate, though. As far as he can remember, Bruce has never had the time to spend roaming around the sprawling estate of his inheritance.   
  
But that's where he is, by the cliffs edging the southern border. Hunched over by a low stone wall that stands sentry over the chaos of frothing sea below. With the sun nowhere to be seen and clouds bunched in a black mushroom in the sky above them, it's not a good day to be out.   
  
Bruce doesn't turn when Dick steps in beside him, but his shoulders tense very slightly beneath his wool pea coat.   
  
"Are you done hiding?" Dick asks, after a minute has passed with them just watching the waves crash and foam over the cliff shore.   
  
Another minute goes by -- and heavy drops of rain begin to patter over them -- before Bruce replies. "We should get back inside."  
  
Dick reaches out, clamping his gloved hand over Bruce's sleeve. "No."  
  
"This isn't --"  
  
"Just shut up." Dick drinks in the sight of him. With his coat collar turned up and a scarf covering his neck, only Bruce's face and dark hair are exposed to the whipping wind and approaching rain. His eyes are cobalt blue and stormy like the churning waters far below, and Dick might get lost in them if they weren't still so  _sad_.   
  
But it only strengthens his resolve to step in, and wrap one arm tightly around Bruce's broad shoulders. His other hand sinks into Bruce's hair, running through the damp, silky locks.   
  
He stares right into those sad eyes, refusing to back down. "I'm not giving up on you."   
  
Bruce lets out a shuddering breath, reaching out to cup Dick's cheek. Stops halfway, as if he's afraid of breaking him. "Dick..."  
  
Dick pulls him closer, presses their bodies tighter. "And I'm not some fragile thing you need to handle with care, Bruce." His voice is a whisper; surely it can't be heard over the heavy drizzle that's starting around them. Their eyes are still locked together. Dick can't look at anything else.   
  
"I want to be with you. Please."  
  
Bruce considers him for a long moment, before casting his eyes downward. His ungloved hand slides down to wrap over Dick's exposed throat, warming it with hesitant strokes. Except his fingertips are bare and icy-cold, and Dick can't help but shiver, wondering how long exactly Bruce has been out here.   
  
"It's not safe," Bruce murmurs.  
  
Dick's mouth curves up in the hint of a smile. "I'm an acrobat. I never go for safe."  
  
The little laugh that earns him is the most beautiful sound.   
  
Bruce rests his forehead against Dick's, shutting out the rest of the world. "I've already hurt you--"  
  
"Not as much as you hurt us both, by refusing this," Dick says softly, curling his fingers into Bruce's hair. "Face it. You're stuck with me."  
  
Bruce's eyes flutter shut. But not fast enough to mask the hope seeping into them, overcoming the walls of pain and melancholia he's built over the years. They're too close now for Dick to miss it; that rare glint of true happiness he had so cherished drawing out as a carefree young Robin.   
  
"Bruce..." Dick waits for him to open his eyes again before continuing. He can barely hear his own words over the thunderous pounding of the rain. Or maybe that's just his heart. "I really love you."  
  
The storm has started up proper; slick, fat drops land on their skin and clothing, while sheets of water descend upon the rolling hills around them in a clamour of wind. It's almost getting hard to see -- but when it comes to Bruce, Dick has never gone by sight alone. It's always the feel of the man that's guided him, that deep connection that has remained between them even after all these years.   
  
"God, Dick. I..."  
  
The breath is squeezed out of Dick's lungs as Bruce, with a shivering gasp, pulls him in for a crushing embrace.   
  
And he whispers, feather-light brushes of tongue in Dick's ear so soft, as if he's afraid the rain will swallow his words up and wash them away, "... love you."  
  
When Bruce leans down to kiss his eyes, his cheeks, his jaw, Dick isn't sure if the drops running down his face are from the rain or tears. It hardly matters once Bruce's mouth covers his own, sharing his laughs of joy.  
  
  
*  
  
  
They're both soaked to the bone when they eventually find their way back to the Manor. Alfred ushers them in with heated blankets, steaming mugs of tea and admonitions about catching fevers.   
  
Outside, it's as cold as it was that night at the warehouse. But with the fireplace in Bruce's bedroom roaring hot flames over their tangled, naked bodies, and his hands wrapped tightly in Bruce's, Dick knows that he has never felt warmer.


End file.
